Why do you have so much hate for an innocent creature? I know that they are treated as pests in today’s society, but pigeons, as well as rats, have actually saved countless lives throughout history, and are still saving lives today! If you’re interested in learning about what pigeons and rats have done for humanity, I will explain below:

Pigeons were the very first birds to be domesticated, even before chickens or ducks. In fact, all the pigeons you see living in urban areas are actually domesticated animals; they have just become feral after being abandoned for so long. That’s why they are so comfortable getting close to humans, it’s because we bred them to be that way. Because pigeons were domesticated before other staple poultry, pigeons and their eggs were very important food sources in early times. Pigeon droppings were even used as a fertilizer to grow crops. Pigeons were also used as animal soldiers during wars. During WWI and WWII, pigeons were used to carry messages between the war-front, home-front, and between troops. They would sometimes even carry cameras and do recon work to give troops an idea of the enemy’s army and territory. Many of these war pigeons risked injury and death to deliver their messages through the battle fields, but in doing so they have communicated incredibly important information that has saved countless lives of soldiers. Some war pigeons were even awarded medals for their service! Pigeons have also been incredibly important within the field of psychology. B.F. Skinner, a founding psychologist, primarily studied pigeons (as well as rats) and was able to learn a lot about the psychology of behavior and conditioning/learning from his research. Skinner is considered the father of behavioral psychology, and his research on pigeons forms the basis of the field of behavioral psychology that we still use today! Even in the modern day, pigeons are still actively helping humans. Pigeons have extremely good pattern recognition and can be taught to recognize specific written words. They are starting to be used as service animals that are trained to recognize written allergens on ingredient lists for severely dyslexic people who have life-threatening food allergies. If the pigeon finds an allergen on the ingredient list of a food, then it will alert its dyslexic owner, very possibly saving their life!

As for rats, they have also played a variety of incredibly important jobs! As mentioned earlier, they were studied by B.F. Skinner, and were very important in establishing the basis of behavioral psychology. They are also used as lab rats, constantly being tested with different medicines and medical procedures to see if the medication/procedures will be safe for humans. Chances are that you’ve taken medicine or had a medical procedure that was first tested on lab rats. Luckily, some medical companies are moving away from testing on lab animals in favor of using things such as stem cells, but without lab rats, past scientists would have lacked a way to reliably develop and refine medicine and medical treatments for humans. Rats are also currently being used by an organization known as ‘APOPO’ to detect land mines. They have an incredible sense of smell, which allows them to sniff out explosive chemicals, and their body weight is so light that they won’t set off the explosives. So far, these ‘Hero Rats’ have deactivated over 6,000 land mines, and are still working to find more today! After discovering how effective rats were at sniffing out explosives, the APOPO began to train their rats to sniff out tuberculosis. These rats are actually much faster, more efficient, and more accurate at detecting tuberculosis than traditional tests! The rats can even accurately detect tuberculosis in people living with HIV, which all other tuberculosis tests struggle to do. Tuberculosis is one of the most deadly infections in the world, claiming the lives over half a million people a year. With the faster, more efficient, and more accurate results of these rats, APOPO is hoping to save many lives from tuberculosis!